Crash survivor improving, NTSB issues initial report

July 06, 2011|Steve Zucker, Charlevoix Courier editor

CHALREVOIX — Austin Hatch, the 16-year-old University of Michigan basketball recruit who was the lone survivor of a June 24 single-engine airplane crash near the Charlevoix Municipal Airport that took the life of his father and step-mother is showing signs of improvement as he recuperates in a Traverse City hospital.

Since June 27, the Hatch family has been posting regular updates on Austin’s condition in a journal on the website CaringBridge.org.

On July 1, the family posted, “He has remained stable, and notable improvements include movement to withdraw from pain and improved breathing function. Doctors have begun the gradual process of reducing his medications. As he slowly begins the ‘waking up’ process, we ask for your continued prayers, and are grateful for the outpouring of love and support for Austin and the entire extended Hatch family.”

The next day the family posted, “Austin had another good and restful night. The concern regarding brain swelling has subsided and his condition continues to improve. We are encouraged by Austin’s response to the excellent medical care he is receiving, a testament to his prior athletic training regimen.”

The Canterbury High School junior and his father also survived a 2003 plane crash near Fort Wayne that killed the boy’s mother, a sister and a brother.

Also on Friday, the National Transportation Safety Board issued its preliminary report on the crash, which happened at about 7:35 p.m. when the Beech A36 single-engine airplane Austin’s father, Stephen Hatch, 46, was piloting crashed into a garage attached to a home located on the northeast corner of Carpenter and Grant streets. Both Hatch and his wife Kim, 44, died as a result of injuries sustained in the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board report doesn’t state a cause for the June 24 crash.

The NTSB report said Stephen Hatch told Charlevoix Municipal Airport that he was executing a GPS approach to the 4,550-foot runway. Witnesses said the cloud ceiling was 200 feet above ground level and visibility was one mile. Hatch’s Beechcraft A36 broke out of the clouds about halfway down the runway, and Indianapolis-based flight instructor Preston Wulfenspein told the newspaper that the pilot “obviously descended below what that approach allowed.”

“It seems as though he was either disoriented or confident enough where he thought he could descend below the minimums,” said Wulfenspein, a certified flight instrument instructor. “He did, but it was not the right thing to do. It was poor decision making.”

The plane’s engine then increased power, the report said, before making a left turn and a turn back to the right around a water tower.

The plane then hit a yard adjacent to the north perimeter of the airport and came to rest in a garage.

The NTSB said a final report could take more than a year to release.

A memorial service for Stephen and Kim Hatch took place Wednesday, June 29, at Blackhawk Christian Ministries in Fort Wayne.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. To read the complete NTSB report visit www.petoskeynews.com.